Frozen Shoulder Treatment in West End, Brisbane

Frozen shoulder involves the joint capsule thickening and tightening. It has a recognisable course: a painful freezing phase, a stiff frozen phase, and a thawing phase. Treating a freezing shoulder as though it were a stiff one is the most common mistake, and it makes the pain considerably worse.

What you are likely to notice

• Deep shoulder pain, often severe at night
• Progressive loss of movement in every direction
• Loss of movement even when someone else moves your arm
• Difficulty reaching behind your back or overhead

What usually causes it

• Often no clear cause at all, which people find hard to accept
• Higher incidence in people with diabetes and thyroid conditions
• Sometimes after a period of immobilisation or minor injury

How we treat it at Forge

The treatment follows the phase. In the painful phase the priority is settling pain and maintaining what movement you have — aggressive stretching here backfires. In the stiff phase, graded movement and loading restore range. We reassess regularly, because the right treatment changes as the condition does.

How long it takes

Frozen shoulder is long — often many months, sometimes longer. We say so at the start, because the single most useful thing at the beginning is an honest picture of the course.